The Chicago Public School (CPS) system seeks to develop and implement a comprehensive, multiyear strategy to significantly improve the performance of its high schools. With more than 600 schools and 400,000 students, CPS is one of the largest school systems in the United States. Approximately 85 percent of its students are from low-income families.
Chicago, like many other U.S. cities with large urban school districts, faces achievement levels and graduation rates that are too low. Many of those who do graduate are not adequately prepared for postsecondary education or the work force.
Because of these concerns, CPS senior leadership, with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, decided to develop a comprehensive strategy to improve its high schools. On the basis of The Boston Consulting Group's extensive experience helping organizations successfully navigate large-scale change, CPS chose BCG as a change catalyst, thought partner, and strategic adviser in this effort.
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The CPS-BCG team took a phased approach to the high school transformation effort:
Preparation Phase: Engaged key stakeholders, established clear objectives, agreed on deliverables, and assigned roles and responsibilities
Diagnostic Phase: Undertook a rigorous quantitative and qualitative, fact-based assessment of the state of CPS high schools and the national landscape
Visioning Phase: Developed a holistic, transformative vision for CPS high schools that included both an end-state vision from the perspective of multiple stakeholders and the identification of change levers needed to achieve the transformative vision
Planning Phase: Created a road map of specific activities, milestones, responsibilities, and timelines
Implementation Phase: Developed a prioritized, sequential rollout for applying the strategies created in the earlier phases
During each phase of the effort, the BCG team was actively and collaboratively involved in shaping the overall approach, framing the critical decisions, and working side-by-side with CPS senior leadership and project management personnel. Playing a critical role, as time passed, the BCG team was actively involved in knowledge transfer and capacity building with CPS staff.
"BCG provided a tremendous amount of analytical support to CPS, allowing the CEO and his team to make informed strategic decisions based on real data," said the Gates Foundation's Margot Rogers. "BCG helped the district prioritize the key levers for change, target resources, and get the sequencing right, particularly at the intersection of curricular and instructional support. CPS's approach is both creative and groundbreaking nationally."
The U.S. public-school system, which educates approximately 90 percent of the country's youth, is showing major cracks. U.S. students consistently underperform their international peers in tests of scientific and mathematical knowledge. Dropouts are also a significant problem, with roughly a million students abandoning high school every year. Inner-city and minority-student graduation rates are often shockingly low.
Numerous remedial efforts have been launched, ranging from the sweeping No Child Left Behind Act to targeted regional and local initiatives. BCG has supported a number of such efforts over the past several years.
We have found that these education-related challenges are very appropriate for the types of analytical and problem-solving approaches—and tools for fostering organizational collaboration and knowledge transfer—that we employ with our commercial clients. Thus, we are often able to work with organizations to help them achieve results relatively quickly.
The BCG-CPS team was able to unite hundreds of disparate stakeholders within one strategic vision. One BCG consultant who worked with CPS said, "I watched a group of skeptical individuals transform over several months into a cohesive unit, bound together around a vision and plan."
The implementation effort, which is still ongoing, has already yielded several successes. One is the launch of a performance "scorecard" for every CPS high school. The scorecard is designed to create transparency for students and parents, keeping all eyes focused on what matters most.
A second win is the development and initial rollout of a holistic instructional system for high school English, mathematics, and science. The system includes vertically integrated curricula that are aligned with state standards, all classroom materials and instructional supports, professional development and coaching for teachers, and end-of-course tests to measure progress.
The system is being rolled out in the 2006-07 school year to approximately 4,000 ninth graders in 14 schools. It will expand over the next two years to include additional grades within these schools and to other schools as well, with a target of reaching approximately 50,000 students in five years.
Implementation has also brought about the establishment of a new senior position in CPS—executive director of high school transformation—and the hiring of several additional staff members to support implementation going forward.
Finally, the early success of the implementation effort has led to additional support for CPS from the Gates Foundation, including a major grant.
"There is a growing belief within CPS that, based on what we've accomplished to date, successful execution is possible," said Larry Stanton, head of planning and development for CPS. "We've had detailed project plans and we've stuck to them—not the norm in a large public bureaucracy. I'm very optimistic."
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